pharyngula

Whoa. All a fella has to do is mention that they're going to Australia, and their mailbox fills up overnight with invitations to go drinking all over the Antipodes. Thanks, everyone, it looks like I'm going to have to work out some way to visit most of the corners of that continent when I get there…

Since several people were curious, the reason I'll be in Australia next year is that I've been invited to speak at The 2010 Atheist Global Convention in Melbourne, on 12-14 March 2010. All that way for 3 days? I'll probably arrange to spend some extra time on my own dime checking out the drop bears…

My talk at the Secular Student Alliance (given the day after the Creation "Museum" trip) is now available online. I think this video was put together by Ashley Paramore, whose smiling face appears near the end of the video — she was also one of several mischievous people who disobeyed a certain…

But the sentiment is worthy. There is a petition you can sign asking the British government to express some public remorse for what was done to Alan Turing. I'm sure you all know who he was, but just in case… Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the…

This year, Texas will require its students to take a Bible course. In the supposedly secular public schools. This could be a bad thing if all the schools bring in their local Southern Baptist minister to teach fundagelicalism…but it would be a great thing if the teachers brought a properly…

This was predictable. As I mentioned, there was a lecture by a Scientist with a Ph.D. in Science from Harvard on Sunday, by a fellow named Dr Nathaniel Jeanson, which is part of a fairly typical trend nowadays: the devout creationist who grinds his way through a graduate program to earn an advanced…

Here's a little secret about getting a graduate degree: it helps to be a little bit crazy. You are dedicating a good chunk of your life to the pursuit of some very abstract knowledge after all, and as a reward, you get faint hopes of landing a low-paying job in your field. A bigger secret: you can…

Some very persnickety people have been demanding that I apologize for riding a fiberglas dinosaur at the Creation "Museum", because it had a sign saying it was intended only for those under the age of 12. I've thought about it. There is that sign, after all, and if I'd looked a little more…

Ken Ham is whining about me again — this time, I am "this atheist professor". He really chokes over my name, doesn't he? Anyway, that's not interesting. What is bizarre is this photo and question: Where were these taken? Answer: In the AiG parking lot when the 285 atheists visited.  As one…

Those Australians know how to sell a classy bottle of wine — it's all in the label. There's a good chance I'll be traveling to Melbourne this Spring, and I might just have to bring an extra suitcase to haul back plenty of these: But noooooo — they're all sold out! Maybe I'll have to change those…

When we Americans need a little reassurance that we aren't Number Last (or reminders that it could get worse), all we have to do is look to Turkey. A Turkish television show had a 'debate' that attempted to disprove evolution, in which the audience was treated to some serious intellectual problems…

Do you need a nice calm godless hymn for a mellow Sunday morning? Here you go.

Kevin Miller, screenwriter for the propaganda film Expelled, has a new project in the works that follows in the Christian movie tradition. Creation, Resurrection Pictures' first original film project—a humorous and tearful story of a high school biology teacher's struggle to expose the lie of…

Peter Irons wrote a letter to Murray Gell-Mann. Dear Dr. Gell-Mann, You may (or may not) know that Stuart Pivar has included on the jacket and promotional materials for his new book, On the Origin of Form, a purported endorsement by you of the book, which reads: "This is the discovery of the…

Cool, I'll accept the title. One of the reporters who joined us in Kentucky has a nice article on the Creation "Museum" trip in the Star Tribune. One thing I appreciate about it is that he actually quotes us on the scientific flaws in the exhibits. There is a very silly quote from Ken Ham, of…

This video is so blatantly insane that I'm half-convinced it's all a put-on…but on the other hand, I've talked with people who actually are this oblivious. See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

In yesterday's Friday Cephalopod, I asked, "Where are the tattoos?" I guess I was being too obscure — I was referring to the latin name of the animal, Octopus maorum, which just means Maori octopus. Anyway, sometimes being too oblique pays off, because Ryan and Sean replied by sending me photos of…

We have made Michael Ruse very sad and very angry. He has an essay up called Why I Think the New Atheists are a [Bloody] Disaster, in which he bemoans the way he has been abused by these brutal atheists, and explains how he thinks these godless scientists are damaging the cause of science and…

Here it is, mid-August, and I just let it slide…I noticed the nagging comments back when I was away, but then let them slide until I suddenly remembered today that there was some administrative chore I'd been neglecting. It is now corrected, and the latest Molly Awards for June are now online. My…

Octopus maorum Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Anyone notice the new Google doodle today? In case you were wondering, they are honoring Hans Christian Ørsted, the clever fellow who noticed that a current generates a magnetic field, a nice simple fact that makes the device you are reading this on possible. Nerds. Gotta love 'em.

Did you miss out on our trip to the Creation "Museum" last week? Do you wish you could see such amazing inanity on display, but you live far away and you just don't think it's worth the money? Or perhaps you just don't want to give AiG a penny. Well, here's your solution: make your own! It's easy,…

Watch this movie to get a little taste.

This is a wonderfully done, very clear explanation of squid color, made using simple hand-drawn animation. See, this is communicating science! CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo. (From the Creature Cast at the Dunn lab)

We more or less blitzed through the "museum" last Friday, and I think I speak for many of the 300 when I say that we'd had enough lunacy for the day. Some of us, apparently, had stronger stomachs, and went back for Terry Mortenson's talk later that afternoon. Dr Mortenson is, I think, one of those…

Stuart Pivar is on a rampage again — he has rallied his lawyers and is on the attack. Not against me, fortunately, but against Robert Hazen, biochemist and author of the excellent book on abiogenesis, Genesis. His crime is that Hazen said a few generous things about Pivar's work once upon a time,…

It's not just Oklahoma — New Zealand apparently has no sick people. They have a brand new faith-healing clinic that fixes everything right up! Rea said patients with problems as diverse as stroke paralysis, cancer or dyslexia were cured, usually within one 20-minute session. Wow. Complete cures,…

That's what I must conclude from Anna Falling's priorities. She's running for the office of mayor, and her #1 most important issue, the one she's made the centerpiece of her campaign, is to get creationist displays installed in the Tulsa Zoo. For Anna Falling, the road to city hall runs through the…

Right now, the US is in a political struggle to get better national health care. One of the chief tactics of the opposition is, in addition to simply lying and pretending it would be horrible for poor children to get medical treatment, is to tell us horror stories about all those wicked socialist…